In his long-awaited first novel, American master George Saunders delivers his most original, transcendent, and moving work yet. Unfolding in a graveyard over the course of a single night, narrated by a dazzling chorus of voices, Lincoln in the Bardo is a literary experience unlike any other—for no one but Saunders could conceive it.

February 1862. The Civil War is less than one year old. The fighting has begun in earnest, and the nation has begun to realize it is in for a long, bloody struggle. Meanwhile, President Lincoln’s beloved eleven-year-old son, Willie, lies upstairs in the White House, gravely ill. In a matter of days, despite predictions of a recovery, Willie dies and is laid to rest in a Georgetown cemetery. “My poor boy, he was too good for this earth,” the president says at the time. “God has called him home.” Newspapers report that a grief-stricken Lincoln returned to the crypt several times alone to hold his boy’s body.

From that seed of historical truth, George Saunders spins an unforgettable story of familial love and loss that breaks free of its realistic, historical framework into a thrilling, supernatural realm both hilarious and terrifying. Willie Lincoln finds himself in a strange purgatory, where ghosts mingle, gripe, commiserate, quarrel, and enact bizarre acts of penance. Within this transitional state—called, in the Tibetan tradition, the bardo—a monumental struggle erupts over young Willie’s soul.Lincoln in the Bardo is an astonishing feat of imagination and a bold step forward from one of the most important and influential writers of his generation. Formally daring, generous in spirit, deeply concerned with matters of the heart, it is a testament to fiction’s ability to speak honestly and powerfully to the things that really matter to us. Saunders has invented a thrilling new form that deploys a kaleidoscopic, theatrical panorama of voices—living and dead, historical and invented—to ask a timeless, profound question: How do we live and love when we know that everything we love must end?

Praise for George Saunders

“No one writes more powerfully than George Saunders.”—Michiko Kakutani, The New York Times

“Saunders makes you feel as though you are reading fiction for the first time.”—Khaled Hosseini

“George Saunders is a complete original. There is no one better, no one more essential to our national sense of self and sanity.”—Dave Eggers

“Few people cut as hard or deep as Saunders does.”—Junot Díaz

“Not since Twain has America produced a satirist this funny.”—Zadie Smith

epaulettes(Grade: A–) A beautifully weird & wonderful book that's ostensibly about a community of ghosts that gets turned upside down by the addition to their ranks of Abe Lincoln's recently passed son, Willie. But it's really about humanity & our loves, both good & evil—for ourselves, for our family members, for our possessions, for this beautiful world we're put on for such a brief moment in time. Creative depiction of the spirit realm. Creative depiction of a sad and scary moment in history. Creative & great book.

(Rated on Apr 30, 2018)

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bookappeal(Grade: A) The unusual narrative structure takes a little work to appreciate but, once you get it, this book becomes magical. Funny, touching, and thought-provoking.

TheKeyLime(Grade: A) it really took me only two days to read, but because I borrowed it as an ebook from the library, I read the first half, had the loan expire, and then was on the end of the queue, waiting to be able to read it again. Beautiful, stirring, and addictive.